He strolled in well-dressed, brown coat slung across one arm, a worn out briefcase in the other. He clearly didn’t want to be there. In his past life, it seemed, he’d been used to so much more.
I instantly shadowed him with a tray of multigrain bread and mini tubs of butter, anticipating his need before he took a seat.
“Tack,” a quick thanks as he reaches for a few slices. Within seconds, I was back with a plate of rice and a sweet-sour meat-y gravy before he had a chance to peel back the little foil cover of his butter.
“Soyasås,” he asked. Soy sauce? I rushed off to find him a bottle of the dark syrupy liquid.
“Tack. No Lemonade?”. I apologized as I poured him a glass of cool water, the only beverage we had. At least, it had lemon slices.
“Socker?” Sugar. He was on to something.
Soon, I was rushing back with cubes of sugar and slices of lemon for homemade lemonade at his table.
With biting cold driving us all indoors, I’d been looking forward to meeting and working with Stockholm’s homeless for weeks. Wondered how they dealt with the heaps of snow. Wondered who they were.
Like him, I was used to so much more in my past corporate life. The business travel. Hopping from one high profile project to the other. Staring at lines of code. Geeking out at tightly written syntax. Business suits. High heels.
I used to have a title.
While I voluntarily gave mine up, I may never really know his full story.
Frankly, his previous story need not matter anymore.
As I rushed to my gate at Heathrow for the fourth time in just 6 weeks, I quickly glanced at my reflection through sliding doors. The oversized ski cap, knee-length scarf, flat-heeled boots, muted neutral colors…
One of the sweetest things I’ve learned while immersing myself in Swedish culture is the silent confidence that comes with that unspoken word…”be” not “say.”
That even beneath nonthreatening exteriors and shabby greys, you can be confident in what you know well, who you are, and no one else really needs to validate that.
My previous story need not matter anymore to anyone else, but me.